


Some of the Dreams You Would Rather Not Dream

by thishasnomeaning



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6216718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thishasnomeaning/pseuds/thishasnomeaning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erasmus would never be a lover. A lover, he had learnt, was someone who gives as long as he is comfortable giving. As long as his love lasts. Erasmus’ purpose was to go beyond that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some of the Dreams You Would Rather Not Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This is very angsty and Kallias and Erasmus are very weird kids in this one. But they are basically brainwashed and trained to be pleasure slaves so they have reasons to be. VERY spoilery warnings in the notes at the end. Also, this fic contains a big Kings Rising spoiler.

Once, in his second year in the gardens of Nereus, during the time when the flowers looked most precious, Erasmus asked Kallias if he knew what love was. Because he had already forgotten about his mother, and his sister, and his childhood friends.

 

*

 

“Maybe I love you,” Erasmus said, when he was still young enough to be that reckless.

 

*

 

Each year, the flowers became more and more beautiful. Until Erasmus knew that he didn’t love Kallias. Because love was an emotion he was not allowed to feel. Erasmus was certain he would never do any of the things he wasn’t allowed to do. Overstepping his boundaries was not like him.

 

*

 

But imagining to overstep his boundaries, that was like him. Even after all these years.

 

*

 

All his live, ever since he had first understood how exactly he was supposed to please his master as a slave Erasmus had secretly imagined what it would be like if Kallias was his master. From time to time he glanced at Kallias’ legs. Kallias had beautiful legs, slender but muscular, of a colour similar to nuts. Erasmus imagined kissing those legs, starting at the tip of his toes, slowly going reaching higher, to the ankle, up the calf, setting a trail of kisses on his thigh, and then… Whenever his imagination took him this far, Erasmus blushed. Thinking like that was not right. It distracted him from his true purpose.

 

*

 

Erasmus had become an extraordinarily good slave over the years. Without his lust for Kallias he would have been a perfect one.

 

*

 

Erasmus would never be a lover. A lover, he had learnt, was someone who gives as long as he is comfortable giving. As long as his love lasts. Erasmus’ purpose was to go beyond that. He was going to be a slave. Someone who gives, without condition, as much as he can and longer than he thinks he can endure. Erasmus was looking forward to that. He would be a masterpiece, a work of perfection, a cause of joy and delight, of pleasure so great that only a slave as meticulously trained as he was could ever provide for it. There had been times than Erasmus had longed to be comfortable but those times were long gone. Erasmus knew that if he was ever going to be comfortable he would be failing at being a slave. He would fail at the purpose of his live.

Erasmus would never be a lover. He would be a slave and thus he would be far more precious than a lover. Being his slave was the greatest gift a man could ever give another. It was the gift that said: I want you to enjoy my life more than I do.

 

*

 

Kallias would have deserved to receive that gift. Kallias who had been the only one in Etasmus’ new life (after he was separated from his family, after he was told that he belonged to the royal family now, after he was forced to forget who he was before) who had cared for him. Kallias had told him that it was not a shame tto have nightmares. That it was not a shame to sob. That it was not a shame to feel misplaced and lonely. Kallias had even dared to hug him (only when he was sure no one would see them of course) and he often hummed a song, so silently that only Erasmus could hear it when he was standing close by. And then Kallias had told him how to do what was expected of him. How to be obedient. How to get praise. What kind of behavior to avoid at all costs. When both of them got much closer to the age when a boy could expect to start training for real, Erasmus had a hard time imagining what it would be like to be a slave. If he could really make it. Once again he asked Kallias for advice. He didn’t expect the answer Kallias gave him at all: “Just imagine that you will be _my_ slave when you finish training.”

 

*

 

Erasmus took Kallias’ advice. Just like he always did.

 

*

 

Erasmus never saved Kallias’ live. He did something better: He saved his sanity. Before Erasmus arrived, Kallias, like all the others was unlearning how to do things he was not explicitly told to do. He was becoming a child who had no other motivation than to follow orders and to _please_. Then he saw the sobbing mess Erasmus was the day he arrived that changed. He couldn’t stand to let the boy suffer that much.

The children in the gardens of Nereus were not supposed to help each other. They were not supposed to grow strong emotional bonds to anyone who would not become their master. And certainly they were not supposed to have their own agenda. But Kallias had something to do that no one ever told him to do, no one but himself: He would help Erasmus to accept his fate. He would give him peace of mind and end his suffering. That, Kallias decided, was a good thing to do.

 

*

 

Later, he couldn’t tell any longer if what he was doing to Erasmus was good. What he could tell, however, was that the longer he was doing it, the more he enjoyed it. Especially later when he was long far from being a child in any way. When his first night with Kastor was coming closer and closer.

In the beginning, Erasmus had been a frightened, unruly child. Almost a lost cause. A boy who had to become a slave but who would never be a good one. But then Kallias began to calm him down. So that he could enjoy his inevitable fate a little better. At first he just showered him in affection, but after a while he started to praise him whenever Erasmus did something well a slave to be was supposed to do well. He told him how proud he was that Erasmus was becoming good at obeying. He praised him for being loyal and demure. And later, when they were growing closer to hitting puberty, shortly before they were separated, he praised Erasmus for his beauty for the first time. Very gradually he began to be more affectionate with Erasmus when Erasmus behaved more like a slave. Erasmus never noticed. The only thing Erasmus noticed was that someone cared for him. That someone took care of his well-being.

 

*

 

Kallias on the other hand gained someone who looked up to him. Who saw him as a mentor. And not as a slave. Throughout his childhood, Erasmus helped Kallias not to become a slave.

 

*

 

During the years of their separation Kallias had missed Erasmus a lot. It was hard to stay being himself when Erasmus was not around. On the other hand, it was easier to pretend. At the time Erasmus started the final part of his training, Kallias was the most promising slave in training. It was strange: His dream to escape (with Erasmus, he would never go anywhere without Erasmus) gave him so much strength that he didn’t mind pretending to be a slave much. In fact, he needed to pretend as best as he could so that no one would suspect him. So that maybe, some day, he would be able to do something he was truly not supposed to do.

 

*

 

He always imagined himself escaping. He never thought that his one moment of heroic triumph would be a kiss – and that it would cost him his live.

 

*

 

During the years of their separation Kallias had a lot of time to imagine escaping with Erasmus. In his imagination, the walls that shielded him from the outside world there easy to climb and the guards that ‘protected his virtue’ were easy to fight or fool. In his imagination, Erasmus would come with him, and they would be friends. Lovers. They would be like people who had always been told hat they deserved love. They would be like people who knew how to cook or how to sew their own clothes or how to refuse someone’s sexual advances. They would be like people who knew when to say ‘I love you’ and how to make a decision. They would be like people.

 

*

 

When he finally saw Erasmus again, part of his dream was crushed. Or, to put it in other words: Part if his dream had evolved.

 

*

 

Erasmus had changed. He had become more graceful when he ever was before, more submissive. Starved for Kallias’ affection he had practiced for the day they there united again. He had finally become a slave. For him. For Kallias. And Kallias liked that. A lot.

Yes, Kalliasc still dreamt of escaping, and yes, he, Kallias, would be a person. He would be like other people. And yes, he would take Erasmus with him. But Erasmus was way to perfect to ever be free. Kallias would take him directly to the next goldsmith. To make sure that he was collared and cuffed. He would order him to kiss him and feed him and to _pleasure_ him and to hug him and to sing him to sleep. He would praise Erasmus for his attentiveness and for his tenderness and for the beauty of his hair and his eyes and his smile and his blush. He would make him promise never to touch anyone else and never to trust anyone else and never to become anyone else’s friend. And Erasmus would be glad to agree to that, he would look so happy, as if Kallias was his savior, as if he was the only person he ever needed in his life. The thought of having to deal with other people would frighten Erasmus, but Kallias’ touch would make him beam with joy. Kallias’ voice would make him beam with joy and Kallias’ orders and Kallias’ every whim would do so to.

 

*

 

Kallias’ was dreaming of forcing Erasmus into the life that he despised, that Erasmus had helped him to never accept as his own fate. It was disgusting. And yet, it was a great idea. A plan that would provide for a lifetime of happiness or the illusion thereof.

 

*

 

Erasmus knew that he was being trained for prince Damianos. Being trained didn’t hurt. Not knowing who his family was, who he was before he entered the gardens of Nereus didn’t hurt. Not being able to live on his own while excelling in other, very specific, very pleasurable qualities, didn’t hurt. The thought of sharing a bed with a prince he maybe didn’t even like didn’t hurt. But the fact that he couldn’t dedicate himself to Kallias, that he couldn’t belong to Kallias, that hurt. It hurt like it would kill him.

 

*

 

And then Kallias didn’t escape. Not before his first night and not after. And he would not share a first night with Erasmus. Instead he lay in a bed fit for a prince naked but for the most see-through, most expensieve chiton he had ever worn, cuffs and a collar made of gold. He focused on being exquisite and beautiful. His beauty, he had decided was the only part of him, Kastor would ever get to know. The situation he was in was wrong but what was most wrong about it was not the way Kastor was touching him (he could ignore that), it was that the bed he lay in, that the richly decorated room was not his. That he had no right to own a slave with a golden pin. Kastor didn’t know. If he knew, maybe he wouldn’t stick his dick quite so deep into Kallias.

 

*

 

Kallias was ordered into Kastor’s chambers and to hurry. But Kallias knew better than to obey this time. He would be found soon enough but he would not face his execution without struggling. And not without taking care of what had been important to him in life.

Jokaste’s chamber was there he was headed at.

“My lady. I came to tell you that I did the same thing you have done.”

“Slept with Kastor? I knew that already.”

“You can guess what else I did.”

Jokaste could, but she didn’t say so.

“That bastard has finally figured out what I did. He doesn’t like it.”

“Calling a King a bastard is not a healthy life choice. Especially not this one.”

“I don’t actually believe being a bastard is such a bad thing. After all I have reason to suspect that I am Kastor’s brother. I have exactly the same claim to the throne he has.”

He could see the surprise in Jokaste’s eyes. And then the recognition. Yes, there was a familiar resemblance. Not so much to Damianos. But to Kastor.

“Why do you tell me all of this?”

“Because he doesn’t suspect you yet. I could tell him about your betrayal.”

“Unless?”

“Find Erasmus. Make sure that he is fine. That he isn’t lacking anything he needs. And tell him…” Kallias voice trailed off. He had no words for what he truly wanted to say. Instead he said: “You’ll know what to tell him.”

For a moment both of them went silent. Then Jokaste began to speak again.

“Do you want me to advocate for him being freed?“

“If Erasmus had been trained for me, I wouldn’t have freed him,” Kallias said.

 

It wasn’t exactly an answer.

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: hinted at major character death and non-explicit non-con incest (but not exactly the type of non-con incest you'd expect from something captive prince related).


End file.
